EmptyCrate Software. Travel. Stuff.

Most of the GUI frameworks I have used are C++ based: QT/gtkmm/wxWidgets. Part of the problem that I do not mention above is there is a bit of a bootstrapping effort to get SWIG up and working well with your C++ back end.

So, if you are trying to bang out a quick prototype, sticking in one language may be your best bet. gtkmm is the easiest to use C++ GUI library I have used (and the best designed, in the crossplatform arena anyhow).

I have used this technique to build a C# based UI on top of a C++ back end. Which did make for pretty quick UI developing. That is one thing that Visual Studio is good at.

I have not actually tried this myself, but it seems that picking some language, Lua, Python, Perl, something that is good at rapid prototyping to build up your prototype with would make sense, that avoids the "working too hard" point of this article. Then, as you begin to fully understand the problem you are trying to solve, come back and replace the core functionality with a C++ library, gaining you the benefits of C++'s performance and C++'s type safety.

I guess that's some rambling thoughts... anyone else have ideas to add?

-Jason